People often incur expenses on behalf of an entity. For example, company employees often incur expenses in their performance of duties on behalf of the company. If an employee's expenditures on behalf of the company are approved by the company, for example, by someone of the company that has approval authority, e.g., a reimbursement administrator, the employee is reimbursed for the employee's expenditures. If an employee anticipates that the employee will incur an expense on behalf of the company, the employee typically requests approval for the expenditure prior to incurring the expense.
Computer applications are conventionally provided for managing a reimbursement workflow. In a conventional computer application for employee reimbursement workflow, the employee manually enters into a reimbursement request form information regarding the service(s) and/or product(s) for which the employee incurs an expense, and submits the form. For example, the employee may submit a form detailing previously incurred expenses or anticipated expenses. It is determined, either by someone of the company, e.g., the reimbursement administrator, or automatically by a processor according to predetermined rules, whether and to what extent the reimbursement request is to be approved. At an end of the workflow, the employee is reimbursed for approved expenses.
However, manual entry of the data by the employee to create a reimbursement request wastes time. Often such manual data entry results in mistakes, such as an incorrect quantity or price. Furthermore, conventional applications do not provide the employee with any direction to determine the nature of the products and services, and the vendors thereof, that are most often approved by the company. Accordingly, an employee who anticipates an incurred expense often performs numerous searches until the employee finds a product, service, and/or vendor that is approved by the reimbursement administrator. Numerous reimbursement requests may be submitted and rejected until the employee submits a reimbursement request for reimbursement approval of an anticipated expense incurred for an approved product and/or service, and an approved vendor thereof.